The baling of farm products along with farming has changed over the years. At the turn of century the number of farmers or farm workers, as compared to the number of industry or factory workers, was quite large. There was a large segment of the labor force actively engaged in farming and many were engaged in the baling of farm products. Farming was labor intensive and there was a large labor force available to bale farm products. The cost of labor was relatively low when compared to the cost of the baled farm product. As the economy expanded the need for factory workers increased. Competing resources drew from the large farm labor pool thus draining the available labor from the labor pool.
As the labor pool shrank, the need to mechanize farming increased to provide the same or increased productivity with less direct farm labor. One solution to mechanize farming is to store farm products in a compact state. For example large volumes of farm product, such as hay, may be harvested directly from the windrows in the fields. The large volumes of hay are rolled in such a way as to be tightly compacted. The hay may then be stored and later unrolled and rebaled into a more workable or convenient bale size. The economies of scale in this approach are self-evident. The bigger the rolls of hay the lower the labor cost of individual rolls.
To preserve the economies of scale, the unrolling and rebaling of the farm product must be done by a labor saving rebaling machine. Attempts in the past have been made to preserve the economies of scale by unrolling the farm product into a hopper. The hopper would then feed the farm product into a chamber. The chamber would grind and mix the farm product prior to its being formed into square or substantially rectangular sized bales. The caveat to this approach is that not all rolled bales of farm product are rolled with the same consistency. Farm products may be harvested at various times during the harvest season and under various climatic conditions. The rolled bales of farm product may be in storage for various lengths of time before being rebated. The rolled bales of various consistencies may stall or choke the mixer or grinder thus requiring labor to unstall the machinery involved. This effort is high maintenance and does not produce the economies of scale desired in transforming rolled bales of farm product into substantially rectangular sized bales.
Other attempts to resolve the problems of efficiently transforming large rolled bales of farm products into smaller bales include the additions of various chambers in the baling process. The chambers have various types of augers, rollers and thrashers that attempt to separate the farm product prior to compacting it into smaller bales. The caveat to this approach is the augers, rollers, and thrashers tend to be unidirectional. The variation in rolled bale consistency is not accommodated. If the consistency of the rolled bale is such that it is tightly wound or wet, the unidirection of the augers, rollers, and thrashers do not separate the farm product. The unseparated farm product generally has to be manually removed or manually separated in the chamber before the processing of the rolled bales may continue.
It would be desirable to have a system for baling farm products that would allow a minimum expenditure of labor to operate and produce smaller baled farm products from larger baled farm products. The system would be able to accommodate various consistencies of large baled farm products i.e., tightly wrapped bales, loosely wrapped bales, or wet and matted bales of farm product. The system would also provide multidirectional capabilities to enable an operator of the system to maneuver the unrolling of the larger bales of farm product in the forward or reverse direction. The aerating and thrashing of the farm product would be under operator control thus enabling the operator to accommodate for varying degrees of consistency (as discussed above) disposed within a particular large rolled bale of farm product. The transforming of large rolled bales of farm products into smaller substantially rectangular sized bales of farm products would no longer rely on labor intensive methods to unroll or unfurl the larger baled farm products or the mechanisms that are primarily designed to grind and compact rather than separate and aerate.